SEO Blog

Fashion eCommerce SEO: The Complete Guide

Are you the owner or marketer for a fashion boutique or online clothing retailer?

Do you want to increase the traffic to your online store?

Do you know what “SEO” is and have you tried to apply the basic fundamentals of an ‘SEO-friendly’ website before?

To make search engines work for you, there are a number of tasks you must take in order to increase the likelihood your fashion website will be found in Google.

SEO for an online store is a little different to optimising a local plumber or accountant’s website!

We understand that SEO can be daunting, so we have created an easy-to-follow guide specifically for online fashion boutiques or E-Commerce sites who want to improve their search engine rankings, increase their traffic and make more sales.

In this guide we share:

Simple, actionable steps, tactics and tools you can apply to your eCommerce website

Proven strategies to help boost your rankings on Google and other search engines

Easy-to-understand definitions for any beginner

Extra resources to help you get the most out of SEO and content marketing

Section 3: Advanced

Beginner

For the boutique owner who is just starting out with an online store, and doesn’t quite know where to start when it comes to SEO. These tactics are as easy to implement, and don’t require any technical knowledge at all!

1. Google Analytics

This is simple but the sooner you install Google Analytics and enable Google Analytics eCommerce Tracking on your website, the sooner you will start collecting valuable data about your website’s traffic sources, keywords, audience information and other useful knowledge that will help your website grow.

3. Check Indexing Status

This is a really quick and easy way to check if Google is crawling and indexing your website. Make a quick mental note of how many pages you think you have on your site (category, archive, blog pages).

Then simply enter site:yourdomain into Google and then compare to how many pages you thought you had.

If it’s shockingly different (way too many or not enough) then you might have some issues with your site and we recommend getting some professional help.

If no results show up, then that may indicate your site might be in breach of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and you may need to submit a manual reconsideration request. We also recommend you get some help with this.

However, it may not be this sinister as you may have a brand new website that is yet to be indexed by Google. You could be even blocking Google from accessing your website or have non-descriptive page titles. Taking actions like installing Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, updating page titles and obtaining some quality links to your website can help Google index your store.

For more information on why your website may not be appearing in Google and what you can do to resolve it, check out our detailed blog post.

7. Category Pages

The main aim of your category page is to drive people further down the sales funnel, by making them view specific products and ultimately buying from your store. Your category page should already enable customers to determine if a product they like, is what they ultimately want. – QuickMage

Category pages are similar to the sections of a department store and present themselves as ‘mid-layer’ pages in a website. Category pages can exist within other categories, known as ‘sub-categories’ for example:

Onlineboutique.com/jackets

Onlineboutique.com/denim-jackets

Onlineboutique.com/Mink-Pink-Jackets

Be careful of having too many category pages, as these can easily become duplicate content on your site. The Yoast SEO plugin allows you a lot of control over how whether to index certain category pages, or whether to block them from Google.

Category pages contain:

SEO copy (descriptions with keywords) that is also useful for the customer. Try not to jam pack this section with keywords or repeat the same keywords more than twice – use common language and outline the benefits of the products within that category.

10. Citations

Citations are basically mentions of your business information (name, address, phone number, and website) on the Internet. This information is the foundation on how Google interprets your business information.

If it is different across the web, Google can get confused, so try keep it consistent.

**Note: citations are only important for fashion eCommerce stores that have a physical shop front as well. If you don’t have a physical address, then this is not necessary!

Citations can be found in:

Business Directories (including Yellow Pages)

Social media profiles

Association pages

**Tip: According to Moz.com, citations are a key component of the ranking algorithm in Google and Bing.

If you are confused about where to get citations for your online and local store, take a look at the following guides to explore opportunities for citation building.

Intermediate

Now that you have the absolute basics of SEO completed for your online fashion store, the next step implement some slightly more advanced tactics.

1. Keyword Research

It is essential to define and target the right keywords so Google can lead browsing shoppers right to your website. You need to understand who your target market is, what keywords they are searching, which search engine they use and how you can their behaviour.

This information will lead to a list of strategically targeted keywords for you to use throughout your website,

This is an important element of any content marketing and SEO plan.

Here are some fantastic resources to help determine your targeted keyword selection:

2. Internal Linking

Internal linking and the use of anchor text is what search engines use to determine what your website is about. Using targeted keywords in your text and hyperlinking them strategically to similar products, relevant categories or resources helps SEO and navigation for your customers.

It’s OK to use keywords in your anchor text, but don’t overdo it as it might flag an ‘over-optimisation’ Google filter.

Internal linking strengthens the overall search-optimised value of a website. Inner linking does so by providing clear paths for spiders, prolonged sessions for users, and a tight-knit network of pages and posts – KISSmetrics

3. Competitor Research

Finding and analysing your competitor’s activities, website structure, and overall content within your industry, will help you in your SEO efforts.

You will be able to determine (along with other keyword research) which keywords you should be attempting to rank your online fashion website for, and then plug those into a rank checking tool to see where you currently sit.

4. On-Page SEO

So far we have covered a lot of ‘off-page’ SEO, so here we will get into the stuff that YOU control.

By customising the different areas listed below, you can help influence how search engines understand your website.

We highly recommend paying close attention to your page titles and meta descriptions. Targeted, informative and engaging descriptions are great for search engines but also help the reader determine whether or not to click through to your online store.

eConsultancy.com believes there is an art to writing effective, 150-160 character meta descriptions.

The screenshot below shows the different page titles for the search ‘womens boots’. Each page title and meta description includes their targeted keywords.

Advanced

Don’t be put off by the word ‘advanced’! The following steps may require a little more time and effort, but can be the difference between the 1st page…and the 10th!

1. Link Building

Gaining quality backlinks from similar pages or authority websites can not only expose your website to new customers, but also significantly increase your rankings on search engines and help you get ahead of competitors.

Link building is highly beneficial and crucial for any online fashion website no matter whether you are using Magento, WordPress or Shopify.

Natural ‘editorial’ links from other companies, brands and people that genuinely want to share your website and products.

Manually reaching out to bloggers, websites or directories with a value proposition or link request.

Self-created (or non-editorial) link building through blog comments, book guest signings, forum signatures or user profiles are considered very low-value and can result in penalties and spam action against your website.

In this section we will touch on how to genuinely build links and relationships that will boost rankings, increase credibility and expose your website to more potential customers.

2. Create Amazing Content

The first step to attracting quality links to your fashion website, is to create some unique, memorable and noteworthy content.

Content for your site includes everything from your product descriptions, to videos, blog posts, user reviews, links and titles.

If your content is not easily shareable, appealing to your niche, informative and structured in a pleasing format, then it’s unlikely people will want to link to you.

It is great content that attracts those genuine, natural links!

Here are some questions you should ask yourself:

Is your product copy descriptive, useful and engaging?

Would a product video be beneficial to your descriptions?

Is there a clear call-to-action for the customer?

Are there customer product reviews visible?

Is it shareable? Are there social media share buttons close to the image?

3. Blogger Outreach

Once you’ve got a website or interesting piece of content on your website that is WORTHY of sharing, then the next step is to get in touch with bloggers or webmasters in your industry.

When you think of bloggers with a readership, think consumer influencers for marketing and referrals/ backlinks for SEO.

Both can be powerful. Connecting with bloggers with a strong following and asking for a product review, a featured article or giveaway, can help expand your website’s reach, introduce your brand to new customers, and then improve your website rankings.

With the ‘blogger boom’, more companies are collaborating with bloggers to promote their business, products and brand – and you should too!

When choosing a blogger, be sure you ask yourself following questions:

Do you have the same target audience?

What is the bloggers social reach and readership?

Is their content engaging?

Do they have a collaboration information on their blog or social media profiles? (Sometimes bloggers will provide a separate email address, readership statistics and partnership kits)

4. Get Interviewed

With all the great content, product reviews and blogger mentions you have now generated about your fashion website, you could now be building an interesting public relations story that you can pitch to media sources, bloggers or journalists.

All companies, brands and businesses have a point of differentiation, the challenge lies in defining an angle that is appealing for fashion media outlets.

6. Structured Data Markup

You can control how search engines interpret the data on your website and how they deliver your information in search results.

How?

By adding bits of schema.org ‘vocabulary’ (coding) to HTML Microdata. When used properly, schema markup can help make your listings look more eye-catching and attractive, thus helping you stand out from competitors.

Schema Markup tells the search engine what the content means… websites that use schema markup will rank better in search engine results pages (SERPs) than companies without markup. – KISSmetrics

How does this apply to your fashion eCommerce website? Schema markup helps your websites rank for a variety of content types including products.

You can control the message here and include the price, brand names and product ratings.

If you need more help to track your SEO efforts, you can download our printable checklist.

Hannah joined the SEO Maverick team after returning to Adelaide after spending a year in British Columbia, Canada. She has a passion for digital marketing, blogging, yoga, entrepreneurship and ethical fashion. You can find her on Google + and Twitter
View all posts by Hannah Paul

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SEO Maverick is an Adelaide SEO and website design agency specialising in local SEO services. Director Andrew Webber has been in the online marketing industry for over 8 years and has worked with some of Australia's biggest brands including: Elders, Rural Bank, Cancer Council and Ouwens Casserly.